


Should You Choose

by scribblemyname



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4256244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will didn't join the Impossible Missions Force to become a field agent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should You Choose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brenda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/gifts).



> This is a bit of a story about how he got into the IMF and into fieldwork, but doesn't go as far as Croatia, which would happen down the road somewhere.

Will didn't join the Impossible Missions Force to become a field agent. He never thought about fieldwork through getting his bachelor's in homeland security, through applying for every remotely relevant internship in the entire Intelligence Community every semester he was in school, or through the interviews he thought would lead him into the FBI or CIA.

IMF had its own methods of recruiting from among applicants, and he passed more covert background checks than he'd known existed at the time before their FBI recruiting contact referred him over and he got an unexpected additional interview where nobody told him the one asking the questions wasn't actually with the FBI at all.

"Well, the job is yours if you want it," the offer came. "I am not at liberty to disclose your employment information unless you show up to the designated point for hiring, beyond the renumeration and classification details here."

He read them over and they were good, better than the FBI's actually, which was his first sign that if he took the job they'd been discussing, he wasn't going to be with the FBI.

He almost asked to confirm, but he decided to nod acknowledgement, shake her hand, and leave because she'd said she wasn't at liberty and that both meant he was right and also that she wouldn't be confirming he was right until he showed up to get the job.

He showed up.

* * *

All new agents went into basic training together at the IMF in their own grueling version of boot camp because, "All IMF agents are top secret, just as the IMF itself is top secret. If you are discovered or killed in the course of your work, you will be disavowed. If you are working with workers from other agencies in the Intelligence Community who do not have top secret clearance, you are not to reveal that you work for the IMF and if you do…"

By now Will knew the rest of that sentence. You will be disavowed. He got it, so he went into basic and learned how to grift and lie and pull off stunningly complex field scenarios in addition to his additional time spent becoming familiar with their intelligence department.

The IMF gathered its own intelligence through mission-related informants attached to internal case workers and through missions with its own agents, but most of the intelligence it sorted through came from other agencies passing on that which was relevant to the Force or that which was too hot for them to take action on.

If the job's impossible, give it to the IMF. That's what they're there for, impossible missions that won't come back to haunt the United States if everything goes very, very wrong.

* * *

"Brandt! Get over here and show Agent Linder how to disarm me of my gun," their SO, Agent Marquez ordered him.

Will complied and stepped out of the exercises to head over. Agent Marquez was a large man, bulky with muscle, and a highly decorated agent down with an injury and saddled with the new agents in basic. Will tried to hide how nervous he felt about trying this against their instructor instead of his fellow student.

But when Marquez pulled the gun on him, all the hours of rote practice and healthy fear kicked in, and he knocked the gun almost without thinking. Don't hit the trigger, don't hit the wrong part of the hand, just get it out and turn the tables. Don't _think,_ just act.

Marquez delivered a harsh look to the other recruit. Linder. The other agent was Linder.

"That is how it's done," Marquez barked out. "Now show me!"

He nodded at Will.

Flipping the exercise. Will swallowed but took the gun and reset the safety so he could holster and start the exercise from the beginning. He pulled it on Linder, and Linder's hands came up but Will still had that healthy sense of self preservation, and he held onto the gun while managing not to fire it.

Marquez glared at Linder and ordered, "Again!"

* * *

They jumped from high buildings, pulling their parachute strings only after they'd fired their two shots behind them. Will absolutely _hated_ that exercise.

* * *

They ran single-agent field scenarios and here, his background in analysis actually helped. He could change tactics on the fly due to changing intelligence and ground conditions and he was just enough doggedly determined that at the end of the day, he came home without having to be extracted.

"I hate day missions," he complained to his bunkmate, Agent John Ashley.

John hung down from the top bunk and looked Will over, who was busy trying to get all the sand off him. "What? You go swimming in it."

Will shook his head in disgust. "Yeah. I did."

* * *

He told himself he was learning how the agents worked, how fieldwork was handled, how to best use IMF resources and what was possible if he handled hot intel, and their intelligence scenarios took even more out of him, but that's what he _wanted_ to do. Figuring out how to turn an impossible situation that would kill Congress if they were involved into a successful mission no one knew was US government authorized was an incredible experience. He'd been training for it since he was barely older than a teenager. All that fieldwork training would just make him a better analyst.

* * *

Then Marquez recovered from his injury, Will passed basic, and Marquez was putting together a new team for a mission in the Soviet bloc. Will had never expected to hear those words.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it." Marquez held out the small black reader that Will already knew would self-destruct after opening.

Will swallowed and stared at it. "You know I joined to do analysis?" he reminded Marquez.

"You excel in the field. You _belong_ in the field." Marquez clapped him on the shoulder. "Just think about it."

* * *

Will thought about it. He thought about all that intelligence he'd sorted through in training and figured out how much of it was probably real and not just a scenario. He thought about the training 'day' missions the agents had run, whether future R&D, comms, or actual field agents and wondered how much of it did things the IMF needed done by expendable fresh meat. He thought about the fact that he did excel at it, even if much of it made his stomach clench and his head spin.

Just one mission. This was his chance to find out whether he wanted to be in the field, and he could always stop if he didn't. Just one mission wouldn't stop him from continuing as an analyst.

He went to talk to his supervisor, a senior analyst, who told him much the same thing. He accepted the mission.


End file.
